Another 42 heroingang suspects indicted in N.Y.
New York Times

NEW YORK For the fourth time in less than a year, prosecutors and
police announced Wednesday that they had broken up a heroin gang that
used murder and violence to stake out its territory on Manhattan's Lower
East Side.

Since October 1996, the Manhattan district attorney's office has charged
four large drug gangs with selling heroin and cocaine in the
neighborhood.

Wednesday's indictments of 42 people suspected of being members of the
Dead Man Walking gang, on charges including murder, selling drugs and
conspiracy, brought the overall number of arrests to 120.

Prosecutors said the Dead Man Walking gang showed many of the same
traits as the three other organizations: a tight control of locations
where drugs were sold, a willingness to use children to carry and sell
drugs, and a murderous affinity to its heroin brand names.

The gang gained brief notoriety after one of its brandname packets of
heroin was found to have been used by a member of the rock band Smashing
Pumpkins who died of an overdose. The band's backup keyboard player,
Jonathan Melvoin, died in July 1996 after overdosing on Redrum, which at
the time was described by the authorities as a particularly potent brand
of heroin.

Prosecutors have said that heroin gangs stamp brand names onto their
bags of heroin to develop customer loyalty and to control the trade of
lowlevel dealers in their area. In August 1996, according to
prosecutors, a member of Dead Man Walking shot and killed a drug dealer
who was selling a rival gang's brand inside their territory on East
Fifth Street.

The heroin gangs have also shown a willingness to use violence to quell
seemingly minor disturbances near drug spots. Prosecutors said John
Luciano, 25, the reputed leader of Dead Man Walking, pistolwhipped a
man who was crying for help after his elderly mother collapsed on the
street near a sales location. The man's cries irritated friends of
Luciano, who went by the street name John Gotti, in honor of the
imprisoned Mafia leader, prosecutors said.

Many members of the gang affected names that seemed to be taken from the
Dick Tracy comic strip. The nicknames included Flat Face Pete, Murder
Mel, Wiggles and Boxhead George.

Police Commissioner Howard Safir said that the number of arrests, and
the dismantling of the gangs, had led to a substantial drop in crime in
the 9th Precinct, which covers the neighborhood.

``Historically, the Lower East Side has had a lot of entrenched drug
gangs,'' Safir said at a news conference Wednesday. ``A lot of the
property crime and the violent crime in the 9th Precinct is linked to
the drug activity.''

Safir said that the department's figures showed that murder had dropped
by 64 percent in the precinct over the last year, and overall violent
crime had dropped by 21 percent.

According to department figures, murder dropped by 17 percent citywide
between 1995 and 1996, and overall crime dropped by 16 percent. The
figures also showed that the murder rate had increased by 225 percent in
the 9th Precinct the previous year, which may in part account for its
recent precipitous drop.

Prosecutors said the strategy of focusing an intense effort on the Lower
East Side drug trade which has been used in the past in other
neighborhoods has resulted in the destruction of entire gang
networks. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau has said that
his office has used the same type of effort to break up crack gangs in
other parts of the borough.

While the Lower East Side investigations have been successful in
attacking the streetlevel gangs, they have yet to result in the arrest
of highlevel suppliers who are bringing the drugs into the area.
Prosecutors said the investigation of the suppliers is continuing, but
declined to provide any details.

©19967 Mercury Center.